Communication Device Challenged

One of the things I pride myself on is the ability to communicate. And I love computers and electronic devices. More importantly, I understand computers and electronic devices. I just have the worst luck getting them to communicate with each other.

I am communication device challenged. I have CDC.

Now, when I say I understand computers, I mean it. I started learning back with the earliest home computers. My first computer was the ADAM. It had no RAM memory, ran off of a cassette tape drive, used BASIC computer language and hooked to a TV screen. I taught myself BASIC to write lines of code to create pixelized stick figures that could move on the screen. Woo, woo!

Then I had one of the earliest PC clones that ran on DOS. Then a better one. Then a Brand Name. Then Windows. Then the internet. Then notebooks. Then flat panel screens. And now a MacBook Pro. All the while I taught myself how they worked and found ways to use them.

I bought books, read magazines, upgraded components, rebuilt motherboards and configured drives. I explored BBS and FTP sites before they had graphic interfaces. And grew and learned with the explosion of the internet.

And every step of the way I would hit a brick wall when I tried to get one device to communicate with another. I would read the user manuals, follow every instruction to the tee... and it wouldn't work. Modems, internet, intranet, WAN's, LAN's, wireless routers, repeaters, IR, bluetooth, you name it. They never work on the first try for me.

They require blood, sweat and tears, first. They require their pound of flesh. There is seldom anyone else around when I am working on these projects but they aren't satisfied until they humiliate me. And then they work.

It is totally capricious and totally arbritrary. One minute nothing. The next it works. As I said, I follow the manual and instructions word-for-word. I cross every i and dot every t and these devices won't cooperate. And then they do. I can do the same thing ten times in a row, no variations, and it will work on the eleventh try.

It is willing to work for me; but I must be broken, first.

Currently, I have a desktop PC, a Sony Vaio notebook, and my MacBook Pro working together in a wireless local area network (LAN). I got a new HP printer/scanner/copier combo to replace my old HP printer. I was able to print wirelessly from the notebooks with the old printer. I read the manual, followed the instruction set-up guide... and nothing happened. The notebooks can't find the new printer. Eventually I got the Mac to find the printer but they must have been mad at each other or something. Because they weren't talking.

So I go 'round and 'round and 'round this bush all afternoon. I walk away. I come back. I un-install everything. I read everything again. I follow the instructions again. Nothing.

Finally my wife comes home from work. I'm sitting in my office, manuals and pamphlets strewn over my desk, the brand new printer is on its stand, mocking me, and I have that crazed look in my eye. "How's it going?" she asks.

One of the things I pride myself on is the ability to communicate. "Arxghhh," I replied.

Just as she began to silently tip-toe backwards out of the room I continued, "I give up. I have tried everything it says to do. I have tried everything I've ever learned or read and I can't get the network to recognize the printer."

I then proceeded to walk her step-by-step through everything the instructions said to do. Showing her that I wasn't an idiot. That I could follow simple, goddamn instructions. God damn it!

"So I did all of these things," I summarized after doing it one more time for her, "I click on this tab and... SON-OF-A-BITCH! There it is!" I pressed the print key -- and it printed, too.

But not before it broke me and made a fool of me, once again.

I'm not sure how I became communication device challenged. Maybe it is a Gypsy curse. Maybe God is fucking with me; seeing how far He can push me before He loses the bet with Satan. All I know is I did not do anything any differently on my ten previous attempts to get it to work. And then it did.

Oh, and by the way, I may be writing tomorrow's blog with crayon from a mental hospital. I'm planning to upgrade my wireless router later today.